blood price
by aFigureOfSpeech
Summary: Where Waddles comes into the picture. [Reverse!Pines AUverse]


**Title:** blood price**  
Word Count:** 730  
**Characters/Pairing:** Reverse!Dipper&Reverse!Mabel  
**Rating:** T (for some brief strong language and references to animal torture)  
**Disclaimer: **Gravity Falls does not belong to me, I'm just here to play.  
**Summary: **_Where Waddles comes into the picture. _[Reverse!Pines AUverse]

**Note: **Dedicated to my lovely Charlotte, who's been having a rough time of it lately.

I was just going through the Reverse Pines tag on tumblr one day, and suddenly had the image of Waddles the magic talking disembodied head. If that sounds familiar...you might have read Fables.

* * *

Waddles was there since almost the beginning.

* * *

Mabel chose the pig, ostensibly as the sacrifice for their first big spell. The Book was very specific, and though Dipper was loathe to admit it, she had an excellent eye for that sort of thing.

He started getting suspicious though, when somehow, time after time, the ritual got put off for any number of increasingly unlikely reasons.

"He's not big enough yet."

"You can't rush the pickling process, Dipshit."

"This isn't the right moon phase. Haven't you read your own book?"

"My stomach hurts."

"I have to wash my hair."

But the line finally had to be drawn when he caught her _talking_ to the damn thing.

"His name is Waddles," she informed him primly, tossing her hair, as if she weren't getting attached to a literal sacrificial animal.

Dipper just glared. Mabel dropped all pretense of casualness and stomped her foot sharply, then stomped it again for good measure. He crossed his arms and remained unmoved; Dipper had weathered through many a Mabel temper tantrum, and knew exactly what kind of theatrics to expect. Her face screwed up pitifully in response and she threw herself on "Waddles," wrapping her arms around it and sobbing openly.

Enough was enough; Dipper gripped her wrist and forced her to look him in the eye.

For just a moment, he forgot himself. He knew his sister better than anyone, and her eyes said she wasn't doing all this on some petty whim. It wasn't the tears that gave him pause, but rather the slant of her brows and the devastated downward curl of her mouth. She was honestly, truly shattered.

(When was the last time he'd seen her like this? When was the last time she'd cared so much about anything outside the two of them?

He couldn't remember.)

Dipper held her eyes without compromise. "The moon is full tomorrow. We do it then, okay?" She looked back at him, gaze full of tears and burning betrayal, but he squeezed her wrist until she nodded grudgingly.

"Good." He let her go and left the shed without a backwards glance. Her angry sobs, wrenched forcefully from deep in her gut, followed him back into the house.

Something had to be done. Tonight.

* * *

"It's not your fault, really," he told the pig spitefully, carefully lighting the candles on the shelves. "You were supposed to die anyway." He made sure the ropes were secure, then measured its fleshy pink neck consideringly with his fingers. In the low, flickering glow of fire, his knife flashed silver and his eyes flashed green. "She just loves you too much."

The swine squealed so sweetly.

It was about when Dipper started experimenting with blood and entrails on the floor (waste not want not, right?) that Mabel snuck into the illuminated shed, clad head to toe in black because subtle was never her forte.

It was about then that Mabel started screaming, and wouldn't stop, and the world erupted into blue.

* * *

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back and Mabel was _still_ talking to that fucking pig. Only now it appeared to be talking _back_—not that it sounded that way to Dipper, but his sister seemed to be having a full conversation.

"What the fuck, Mabel?" he grumbled, rubbing his pounding head as he sat up. (Okay, so maybe sticking its fat head on a spike was a bit sadistic, but Dipper never claimed to be a saint.)

"Waddles _knows_ things now, Dipper," said Mabel serenely, turning fever-bright eyes on him.

A beat. "What…sort of things?"

A piercing squeal abruptly cut through his headache.

"He says you're thinking you wish you'd burned him to ashes when you had the chance," she translated. Apparently. Mabel turned back to the pig, stroking his ears soothingly. "Don't worry Waddles, I won't let him hurt you anymore." Near her elbow, blood dripped and coagulated on the pole protruding down from the flesh of the neck stump.

Well yes, he had been thinking about fire, but Mabel was his twin. It wouldn't be the first time she knew what he was thinking.

The _still animate pig head_ snorted and snuffled.

"Yeah, no, it's not cuz I'm your twin. It's cuz Waddles told me. He's psychic now, brother." Her eyes glowed (with excitement this time, not magic).

And that was when Dipper began seriously contemplating show business.


End file.
